-As women, hair is definitely a huge part of our attraction.
In culture, it's a very, very big part
of how we present ourselves.
It can mean so many different things.
With curly hair, it can have different connotations
to straight hair. Just like the clothes we wear,
I think it's a way to express ourselves.
It's a matter of, like,
how you want to be seen from the inside out,
and I think the buzz cut would be
how I feel like I'm presenting at the moment.
Hi. I'm Ebony, and today
I'm going to get a blond buzz cut.
I've been thinking about getting my head shaved
for probably almost a decade,
and it's definitely been one of those things
that I thought one day I'm going to do.
But I've never really felt super comfortable.
I've been on a very long hair journey to get to this point.
I am mixed race.
So I'm half Filipino and half Jamaican.
And, with that, I feel like a lot of mixed
Black women have a similar experience with their hair.
I mean, Black woman in general,
it's a very, very emotional tie that you have with your hair.
When I was growing up, probably from 12 years old
until about 24, I straightened my hair.
So I had pin-straight hair, always straightening.
Literally every morning,
my mom even once went over it with like a proper iron.
Anytime it would get curly at the top,
I'd be like, I've got to go home.
I've got to get this straight.
I grew up with a lot of East Asian people
and a lot of White people. And I feel like, for me,
that was my way of kind of fitting in.
So when I finally decided to cut the straighteners cold turkey,
I did that in 2019, right before the pandemic.
I actually chopped off all the damage,
so it was kind of growing out. It was a bit, like, scraggly.
And I remember the moment I looked in the mirror,
and I had my long black curly hair.
And I was like, this is what I'm meant to look like.
And I think that was a really transformative moment for me.
Then I went blonde because I was like, you know what?
Now that I feel comfortable with my hair, let's experiment.
Let's do something different. I do love my hair right now.
I think the amount of time it takes me
to do my hair every morning,
I wish I could just wake up like a man, wake up,
not have to worry about my hair, and just go about my day.
♪♪
-Hi. I'm Alisha Dobson.
I've worked with Bleach London since the beginning,
and I'm part owner of Bleach Brixton.
I'm mainly a colorist so color being a specialty,
curly hair, wigs, extensions,
and also a bit of freelance music and touring.
How are you feeling, Ebony? -Nervous!
-So it's a really huge transformation
for anybody to shave off their hair.
I think you can hold a lot of your identity in your hair.
So it will be -- it will be really big,
but I think she's going to look amazing.
-It's taken me a very long time
to actually get to the decision of doing it.
Even as I sit in this chair, I'm a bit like,
what are you getting yourself into?
But I think hair goes back. Life is short.
You can really rock anything. Chopping it off, baby.
-You ready? -Yes.
-So I'm going to start longer. -Okay.
-And then we can, yeah, always go shorter.
So today on Ebony we're doing a full transformation.
Start by fully shaving the head.
♪♪
Now I've gotten rid of a lot of the length.
I'm just going to go back in and kind of shape the hair
so you've got a little bit shorter around the back
and the sides and like tapered around the edges.
It then doesn't just grow out around your ears.
It was still stay a little bit more tapered in
and a little bit softer around the edges.
Now we're getting into the proper --
the buzz part of the buzz cut.
-So I used to watch my dad, like,
shaving my brothers' heads all the time.
-Really. -Like, they would just do it.
-Did you ever give it a go?
-Absolutely not. No.
I actually told my dad at one point that
because my dad passed away like five years ago,
and I told him before, I was like,
I really just want to shave it. I want to get rid of my hair.
And then when I just cut it like to bob he was like,
you're not as cool as I thought you were. I was like wow.
-Because he thought you would actually, like, go for it.
-He would have thought this was cool.
♪♪
-Let's go back over it once more and sort out your --
just around the ears. And then we'll bleach it at this
and then have a look at it blonde.
You don't want to go too short blonde
and then it almost feel a bit too, like, see through
because you want a bit of hair hair texture.
♪♪
-Oh, my God. It's so weird.
-You've got a hair band on your wrist. I love that.
-Feels like when you touch boys' heads.
It feels even better because it's mine.
-So this is a scalp protection treatment,
it's almost as if you've like not washed
your hair for a few days,
just a little bit of an oil protection.
All right. Next up, bleach.
-Drama.
♪♪
-Technique wise, it's kind of like going in,
in every single different direction,
making sure that you really get into the hair,
if you're just kind of painting it on flat,
it's just not going to kind of saturate through. Right.
♪♪
That is you.
-Now we wait.
-I'm going to put on your beautiful cap.
We'll leave it to develop under a cap just for added heat
and to retain that moisture.
Every now and then we'll do a scrape test
until we get to the level of lift that we desire.
[ Humming ]
Now is making sure that you've got enough product
in different places.
With a shave, it can -- it can sit quite compact,
so you just want to make sure you're kind of lifting it.
We are done. Let's go to the basin.
♪♪
Ah! I love it!
[ Both laugh ]
♪♪
So this is Alex-Plex. So this is Part 2 of a treatment
that's already within the bleach that I've put on.
So now I'm going to just pretone with the silver shampoo
and just massage that in,
and then that will help reduce some of this yellow tone
that we have now.
And then it'll be a toning process
and moving on to the desired tone.
You kind of do toner a lot by eye as well as by time.
With some of them, you kind of like you want to leave them
for that full amount of time.
But others you may, like, take it off
before it reaches its full development.
♪♪
This is white toner and some fade to gray,
but just wanted to neutralize out some of the bits.
♪♪
Girl! How does it feel?
-Oh, this is so crazy.
I'm literally speechless, and I never am.
-Put your hands in it.
-It looks different, but it, like, looks amazing.
I definitely feel like it's me. That's all that's left there.
♪♪
I am really happy. I definitely feel like this
is just going to be a new start for me.
I knew I wanted to do this for a very long time.
I thought it would suit me, and this is just --
I mean, it looks even better than I thought it was going to.
-For the blonde buzz cut, it's a pretty easy maintenance.
Every six to eight weeks,
wanting to reshape that back down and bleaching again.
It also looks great with roots.
-I think Alicia did an amazing job.
I feel like this is how I want to be seen right now,
and I feel like she's made me just feel myself
from the inside out.
♪♪